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IBM Plays SimCity With Portland, Oregon 220
Hugh Pickens writes "Portland, Oregon will be the first city to use IBM's new software called Systems Dynamics for Smarter Cities, containing 3,000 equations which collectively seek to model cities' emergent behavior and help them figure out how policy can affect the lives of their citizens. The program seeks to quantify the cause-and-effect relationships between seemingly uncorrelated urban phenomena. 'What's the connection, for example, between ... obesity rates and carbon emissions?' writes Greg Lindsay. 'To find out, simply round up experts to hash out the linkages, translate them into algorithms, and upload enough historical data to populate the model. Then turn the knobs to see what happens when you nudge the city in one direction.' One of the drivers of the 'Portland Plan' is the city's commitment to a 40 percent decrease in carbon emissions by 2030, which necessitates less driving and more walking and biking. After running the model, planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option. But as the field of urban systems gathers steam, it's important to remember that IBM and its fellow technology companies aren't the first to offer a quantitative toolkit to cities. In the 1970s, RAND built models they thought could predict fire patterns in New York, and then used them to justify closing fire stations in NYC's poorest sections in the name of efficiency, a decision that would ultimately displace 600,000 people as their neighborhoods burned."
Roadless (Score:5, Interesting)
Tear up all the roads. Replace with rail.
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Ever try that in SimCity? Unless you have some massive money built up it usually fails. Turns out rail is not all that cheap.
So that leads to the 2nd solution here, raise taxes to balance the budget, resulting in everyone moving away. Carbon problem fixed.
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Ever try that in SimCity? Unless you have some massive money built up it usually fails. Turns out rail is not all that cheap.
That's the unrealistic part about simcity. In the real world, rail pays the govt, not the other way around. That being why the rail infrastructure is in such poor shape in this country... If they invested, the govt would tax the tar out of them, which they can't afford.
Heavy traffic reported (Score:2)
Original simcity?
Yes, I always found the reduced maintenance cost of roads, outweighed the negative effects of traffic and pollution.
Rail only allowed greater land values, and therefore tax income.
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porntipsguzzardo
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Tear up all the roads. Replace with rail.
Heh - they're working on that already [trimet.org].
(in all seriousness though - the Max is a pretty good deal, *especially* for going downtown).
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Heh - they're working on that already [trimet.org].
(in all seriousness though - the Max is a pretty good deal, *especially* for going downtown).
And that is the problem. To provide the coverage that roads currently do with the convenience that roads to rail will never work. Here in the Twin Cities we have some rail running from downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America [wikipedia.org] and one from Big Lake down to Minneapolis [wikipedia.org]. They are also building the Central Corridor [wikipedia.org] line to connect Minneapolis to St. Paul. Now this is all fine and dandy if I actually wanted to go to any of these places but I don't and I don't live close to or work close to them either. Add t
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depends, for me to get into Portland from Tualatin(12 milers) can take 60-90 minutes by rails. The drive takes me 15 minutes from my driveway, to parking. (6AM)
When they started the rail out in Tualatin, I was pretty excited. The I found out it goes toe beaverton, then then you need to transfer.
Personally, I think an above free way rail system would be the best solution, long term. Yes I recognize it would be expensive, but there are not any problems that haven't already been worked out.
I would go from Port
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I don't live in Portland but where I do live (MSP) that wouldn't work at all. Why? Because of the way the metro area has developed and how the natural landscape exists, it would be costly and ineffective.
1. Not everyone works downtown and a good many people work in suburbs which ring the entire city. Because we encouraged urban sprawl for so many years it would take twice as many years (due to the economy and long running and currently very high anti-tax sentiment) to make rail happen even to the general ar
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I don't live in Portland but where I do live (MSP) that wouldn't work at all. Why? Because of the way the metro area has developed and how the natural landscape exists, it would be costly and ineffective.
I've worked on Twin Cities transit issues for nearly a decade, so this comes from long experience.
You've got a few bits of information wrong. Rail has in fact worked very well here in MSP. The Hiawatha line is outperforming every predicted metric. Northstar is underperforming for a few reasons. It was only built to Big Lake, so it misses the large ridership pool in St. Cloud. It opened right as the recession started. Commuter rail is for commuters. People were losing jobs so fewer commuters = lower r
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My opinion is that their projected ridership numbers were very, very low.
That's your opinion. Ridership projections go through enormous scrutiny at the federal level. Any transit project goes though orders of magnitude more study and justification than any road project. This is, of course, by design.
The service level provided by the opt-outs are far and away superior in every. single. way. to MT for the majority needs of the public at this point.
Yet they do not provide the suburb-suburb service you say is critical. Metro Transit carries the vast majority of ridership in the area, so it seems the public has opted for it over the opt-outs. It's insane to have the number of transit providers we do in the Twin Cities. It's
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Tear up half the road and use it for rail and the remaining half for bikes and pedestrians. Also, allow freight via light rail to eliminate the need for delivery trucks in the city.
How do emergency services operate?
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Flying trains. Or, you know, cars and stuff. Emergency services have always been allowed to bend the rules.
But - how the hell does he expect stuff to get from the train station to the stores without vans/trucks...?
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Forklifts or other small vehicles, of course.
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Forklifts or other small vehicles, of course.
Awesome idea for the local firefighter's department /facepalm+sarcasm.
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A forklift can tow water pumps, tanks, and other equipment without any trouble.
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But they save nothing. You still need engines for the massive pumps.
Forklifts, good grief.
Re:Roadless (Score:4, Insightful)
Naturally a city with such a good infrastructure would also have plentiful fire hydrants. Slashdot posters can't seem to imagine anything but the suburban wastelands they live in.
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Naturally a city with such a good infrastructure would also have plentiful fire hydrants.
Since that's the only fire rescuing infrastructure one would require in a city of significant size. Not to mention all the other infrastructure requirements for such type of population centers.
Slashdot posters can't seem to imagine anything but the suburban wastelands they live in.
Just because you imagine it does not translates it to the realm of the practical (or even efficient). There are a lot of ways to design civil infrastructure that is more eco-friendly, economical and sustainable. Yours ain't one of them. You haven't even put any thought behind them as you are simply defending the indef
ever (Score:2)
A forklift can tow water pumps, tanks, and other equipment without any trouble.
Ever drove one? I have, for work, and for years (when I was working full-time while getting my BS degree in CS.) They are great for lifting things up and down, but you have to drive them in reverse for safety (unless you drive the small types), they are designed for carrying things on their forks, not for hauling (very important distinction, just look at their wheels for Christ's sake), and I believe (I could be wrong in this) they are not designed for efficient traveling over the same distances you would e
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Forklifts are what you use to unload trucks - not to drive 5 miles from the train station to the superstore with 3 crates. Even if you used 12 Tonne rated forklifts it would still be way less efficient (and far more dangerous) than using a truck. That kind of infrastructure is necessary unless we fit every city with an underground rail network for delivery (which would be pretty cool).
Individuals having their own transport is far less essential than well stocked local stores/markets, and public transport be
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Re:Roadless (Score:5, Informative)
Forklifts or other small vehicles, of course.
Hell, I'm a forklift dealer; so if all the trucks in the world were replaced with forklifts than I'd be an exceedingly happy man- but your thinking is so fantastically full of shit as to be unbelieveable.
You want to replace diesel trucks designed to run on the roads with other diesel trucks, designed to run for a hundred yards at a time, with a top speed of ~5mph, with big steel forks sticking out of the front; in the name of effeciency? Did you guess that the average forklift weighs about 2x its max payload unladen, and will get ~2-5mpg (carrying ~2.5t max, vs. ~20mpg for a van that would carry the same, or vs. ~10mpg for a truck that would carry 10-25t)? Do you have any understanding of anything, other than dogmatic "road vehicles==BAD"?
Re:Roadless (Score:5, Funny)
But...forklifts run on batteries powered by magic.
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Turn the train stations into train station/store complexes.
Since you've built the number of train stations so everyone can get to one, you can also get to the store, which is at the train station, which is where the goods are.
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I remember watching a show quite a while back about suburban living centers. They tried setting up housing and shops within walking distance. They setup the community to be self sustaining but people felt more imprisoned, like they were being segregated. I want to say it was Harlem, but I can't a related article or story.
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Re:Roadless (Score:5, Funny)
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How does one pull over for emergency vehicles if you are on a track?
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You wouldn't have to - the centralized prioritization system would be able to speed all the vehicles on that particular track so that the EV got their efficiently. I mean, we're dreaming right now, right? You'd look forward to having an ambulance in your lane instead of dreading it, and it would be safer for everybody as lane switches are the most dangerous part of driving.
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Tear up half the road and use it for rail and the remaining half for bikes and pedestrians. Also, allow freight via light rail to eliminate the need for delivery trucks in the city.
How do emergency services operate?
They don't. People are self-reliant, are one with nature and all that kumaya shit.
Re:Roadless (Score:5, Funny)
How do emergency services operate?
Once every Portlander is biking everywhere, eating all organic foods, and having the health of their aura measured at least once a month--you won't need emergency services. No one will ever get sick, and all will live in a paradise of virtual immortality.
Or, at least, that's what that white guy with dreadlocks in my drum circle told me.
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disney is way ahead of you
check out their chuggington cartoon
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Typical short sighted 'it fits MY view' crap.
OK, freight comes in by rail* Then... what? Do you propose sending rail up to every business? teams of aardvarks then carry the goods to stores? What about freight moving through, but destination elsewhere?
What about people who cant ride bikes? how to they get to their specific destination? who moves the mail? How do yuo deal with the high level of bums, criminals and drug addicts? How do you get tourist to come back when they needs to sit near someone who smells
No Disasters (Score:4, Funny)
Just make sure they disable disasters before they play. An alien monster destroying the power plant wouldn't be nice.
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For The Matrix reference, is the program that controls the sun a little Indian girl?
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Tell that to Japan!
They would have loved to turn off Disasters last year!
simple consulting? (Score:2, Redundant)
I can't help myself, "By using the software, Portland confirmed its plan to reduce carbon emissions 40 percent by 2030 would on the whole be a positive outcome." is IMO as news worthy as "By tasking a PwC opportunity analysis, Portland confirmed its plan to reduce carbon emissions 40 percent by 2030 would on the whole be a positive outcome."
What makes IBM's modelling so special?
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Apparenty they found a computer model that infuses people with a desire to walk and bike:
After running the model, planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option.
I find it very hard to believe that this feedback loop exists in real life to any significant degree. If it really was true, the professional sports athle
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Apparenty they found a computer model that infuses people with a desire to walk and bike
You haven't been downtown here, have you? Walking and biking is about the only way you're going to get anywhere during a typical weekday... especially after Mssr. Adams decided to go slightly crazy [portlandonline.com] about the bike lanes, which left less room for cars.
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Apparenty they found a computer model that infuses people with a desire to walk and bike
You haven't been downtown here, have you? Walking and biking is about the only way you're going to get anywhere during a typical weekday... especially after Mssr. Adams decided to go slightly crazy [portlandonline.com] about the bike lanes, which left less room for cars.
But if they use modeling to fix traffic woes, then more people will be emboldened to drive, filling the streets back up again.
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Takes me 7 minutes to get from 18th and Quimby* to then portlan building at 5:30 PM, by car
So, it's not the horrid.
However the stupid bike line crap is crazy. No one knows what to do, everyone is unsure, and bicyclist still meander all over the road with no consistency.
*Chowdar!
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Actually, setting a hard drive the has had a bloatware deleted from it next to a HD with bloatware to get rid of bloatware would be the Homeopathic approach. You're approach actually does something.
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Apparenty they found a computer model that infuses people with a desire to walk and bike:
After running the model, planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option.
I find it very hard to believe that this feedback loop exists in real life to any significant degree. If it really was true, the professional sports athletes would prefer walking and biking over driving their cars, and the sport stars seem to be preferring their luxury sports cars today.
IBM's model must be missing one or more important variables to why people choose cars over walking.
You're misinterpreting that. It said that a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option. Meaning more attractive than an unfit population would.
It's not that most fit people would choose walking over cars, especially not in all situations. It's that a higher percentage of fit people would choose walking or biking than unfit people would. Which makes perfect sense. If I'm going 3 blocks and I'm in good shape, that's not much of a walk. Especially if it's in decent weather
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I am sure a lot of us will prefer to bike and walk to work...
But the problem is Work is in the City and Home is in Rural/Suburban areas.
We move to these Rural/Suburban areas because of less crime and in general people just not caring about anyone else property. I use to live in the City I couldn't even keep flowers planted in front of my house, or garbage can lids on my garbage cans, any attempts to make my area of my community a nicer place to live came with people who tried to make sure it went further do
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The Minuteman Bikeway in Massachusetts is heavily used for commuting. If you only allow people to bike on the streets, then fewer people will do it; but if you create a choice then more people will bike. It costs a lot of money to build separate paved bikeways, but still much less than paved roads.
It's the reverse of the RAND study. You can force shrinkage by removing services or you can add people who want bikeways by building them. Studies have shown that property near bikeways sells in half the time
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Yes, houses next to niceslly cared for parks and pathways sell for more. Big surprise.
I assume you want the home owners to pay for the bikeways? or do you want the people in homes that gain no benefit to pay to? Maybe a bike tax?
Something I would be in favor of, actually. A 50 dollar license every 2 years for bicyclist over 18.
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It does, but not for any mysterious reason.
People decide to rids a bike; they get healthier. As they get healthier, the find bike riding more enjoyable.
Something which I see a lot. Anecdotal, but you can confirm that6 at any bicycle event.
We also know that when a sizable enough group starts enjoying things, people who would not have considered it(in this case bicycling) take it up. That's a pretty well document aspect of human behavior.
I use to bicycle, but then I got a drivers license. heh
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It's true that people would want to walk/bike more if they're fit, just to keep them fit and feeling good, and to save money. I enjoy an occasional walk home from work, since it only takes an hour. Most of the time I use the bus though.
BUT. For a large number of people walking and biking will be infeasible simply due to the distances involved, and the extra time taken. This could result in people being more careful about where they live and work, but I think the ideal would be electric vehicles plus people
I found 2 ways to succeed in sim city (Score:2)
a) build a slum with nearly zero taxes
b) Build acrologies with enough police stations around
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In vernacular usage SC2000, one of the brave exceptions to the law that the sequel is always shit compared to the original, is sufficiently canonical that it may be referred to simply as 'SimCity'. The same is not generally true of the subsequent sequels.
Only if you are younger than 25. For people in my age group the Super Nintendo SimCity is our canonical version. I played the very original SimCity on PC after the SNES one, and was left unimpressed.
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Only if you are younger than 25. For people in my age group the Super Nintendo SimCity is our canonical version. I played the very original SimCity on PC after the SNES one, and was left unimpressed.
Actually make that "only if you are younger than 30 or did not have a SNES", SC2000 was released on PC in 1993. Shit I am getting old.
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The way I did it was alternating a few years with zero tax with a few years at the top 20% bracket. That way I raised money faster than letting taxes at the theoretically optimum 7%.
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I think SIM City tried to be politically neutral So they built in advantages for the two key political ideologies.
Success is key if the government stays out.
Success is key if the government has control.
But being that SIM City is a kids game, It kinda punished a balanced approach to the problem.
Models don't tell you anything you didn't know (Score:2)
Re:Models don't tell you anything you didn't know (Score:4, Insightful)
People put so much stake in computer models anymore that when they don't match up with reality, reality is blamed for the error.
Re:Models don't tell you anything you didn't know (Score:5, Insightful)
Both an accurate model and a shitty model are, in the hands of a suitably skilled consultant's graphic design team, essentially identical in their ability to provide a dense veneer of scientific rationality, 3D-rendered near-future utopias attractively large-format-printed on posters suitable for display at planning meetings, and other charming props to hang on your existing plans and prejudices...
Things can get particularly ugly if there are large fudge factors in your initial dataset: modeling material stresses, or aerodynamics or such is hard because it is easy to be wrong about difficult stuff, and easy for slight mistakes to cascade(at least, though, there are correct answers that you can hopefully find, even if you don't know them just yet); doing societal cost/benefit analysis is hard because there are lots of factors that don't have quantified costs or benefits, so you can shove the model around just by slapping different price tags on unquantified things.
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doing societal cost/benefit analysis is hard because there are lots of factors that don't have quantified costs or benefits
Welcome to Economics, it's not in vain it has been called the dismal science.
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How can a veneer be dense, and where can I buy one? There is so much that I don't understand about marketing and may need to subcontract out to a specialist.
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Re:Models!! (Score:2)
Oh dear gawd, listen up everyone, I'm sure I'll get weird moderations for this, but here goes.
This is the successor to Facebook if they do it right!
It combines everyone's favorite Watcher mentality with everyone's favorite 90's game!
Everyone loads themselves in, some people are "helped" etc. You can watch the entire town buzzing merrily along! Click on people! Their phone sends them a hello text! Click on stores! See what they have in stock. Click on the DMV. Check the lines.
The possibilities are both endle
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"Computer models don't tell you anything you didn't already know"
false.
And the rest of your post seems to indicate about a 2nd grade understanding of models. My apologies to any 2nd graders.
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I'm sorry I r
PDX? (Score:2)
You can add pirates to the sim, and it would still look like the real thing (no, seriously [pdxyar.org], you can). No word on ninjas, though.
It's cool and all that IBM thought to do a sim of us out here in Stumptown, but I mean, we're not exactly going to be one of them thar model cities [katu.com] that will replicate easily to other towns.
I mean, hell, couldn't IBM choose something easier to do, like, oh, Des Moines [desmoinesisnotboring.com] or something?
Now to be fair to the fine folks in Iowa, they do have the Carp Festival [facebook.com], but seriously? IBM would hav
Interesting claim about RAND (Score:4, Informative)
In the 1970s, RAND built models they thought could predict fire patterns in New York, and then used them to justify closing fire stations in NYC's poorest sections in the name of efficiency, a decision that would ultimately displace 600,000 people as their neighborhoods burned.
So the source is a wikipedia page, which cites this book [google.com], which is a dead end for now.
Are the authors talking about this study [rand.org]?
If anyone's got a source that actually backs up the notion that RAND explicitly recommended closing down fire stations in poor areas, or the actual claims that "they're just committing arson anyway", I'm very curious, as that's a pretty wild claim. I've emailed them for comment.
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Thanks for that link. It has the "six companies were disbanded" statement on page 22. As the report points out, south Bronx, central Brooklyn, Harlem and lower east side had the highest number of fire incidents(Fig 2) and the highest concentration of existing fire companies(Fig 1). It also showed that simply adding fire companies(in the same fire house!) did NOT reduce the workload for existing companies(top of page 7).
Finally, their computer models were not designed to predict fire patterns. That e
Am I overly paranoid? (Score:2)
Now, maybe I'm just being paranoid here, but that sounds too good to be true. Nobody closes fire stations just because software says they can. But people do wrangle a study until it gives the results they like, and then use it as ju
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I've seen "studies" where a consultant has just flat-out asked the person who hired him what conclusion he wanted, then wrote a report justifying the conclusion. Hiring a consultant is a common way to get your idea approved in a large company. The RAND study looks like it was used to justify a slum-clearing plan already decided on by the city.
models - a plotician's dream (Score:2)
A few tweaks here and there, throw out that historical data (it's obviously flawed), and tweak this historical data (it's flawed but we know how to "fix" it) and I can make the model "prove" whatever you want. Now you can justify your vote with "science".
I doubt Portland will do anything like have the models predict outcome of projects for the next 10 years, then if they show success use it for the following 10 years. Instead they'll start spending now because "science" says it's ok.
Simple solution (Score:2)
Rename the town "DebtCeilingAA+" to activate the infinite money cheat.
They needed a supercomputer to figure that out? (Score:2)
Surely they must have discovered something that's both relevant and doesn't cause people to groan at how obvious it is?
Anyway, these kinds of models suffer from a fundamental problem that can never be solved. While a lot of the steady-state behaviors of a city may be amenable
Positive feedback loop 2 (Score:2)
Provide high speed network to the entire city. More people will stay home because they can work and play from home. Then there will be fewer people on the roads, buses, trains, and in the parks and libraries. Slash the budget for those services like you plan to any way.
SimCity:Portlandia (Score:2)
"Nudge" (Score:2)
Does anyone have a problem with governments spending money trying to model ways to "nudge" our personal behavior? I'm all for sound city planning, etc... But this seems to dive headlong in to limiting freedoms. I'm not comfortable with any government getting this up close and personal with me. I already have a wife that nags me about exercise...
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RE: RAND Corporation... (Score:2)
Apparently, the "planned shrinkage" policies were part of a broader 'Urban Renewal'/cost reduction planning strategy by the city of New York. "Stop providing police or fire service to the slums
Legislators and Councilmen (Score:3)
and help them figure out how policy can affect the lives of their citizens.
You mean that until now, the people who are paid to take decisions for us have absolutely no idea of the potential outcomes of these decisions? That would explain a lot.
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"You mean that until now, the people who are paid to take decisions for us have absolutely no idea of the potential outcomes of these decisions?"
That and they don't really care, as long as it gets them re-elected. Intent garners almost as many votes as results, and it's a hell of a lot easier.
Problem with this sort of model (Score:2)
More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option.
Would a fitter population find walking and biking a more attractive option, or would they find it a less unattractive option? These sound like the same thing, but think of it this way. Two scenarios where you are out looking for a sex partner.
Scenario One: You find yourself in a position where you have a choice of one of tw
Tanaland (Score:2)
Overall I think this is a positive way of trying to improve a complex reality. There was an experiment in 1990 of an imaginary town called Tanaland, and most people failed miserably in improving the long term life conditions for its inhabitants. From http://tersesystems.com/2011/06/10/the-logic-of-failure [tersesystems.com]:
Jobs (Score:2)
The ability to walk to work requires a job within walking distance, which almost never exists. In this, reality seems to follow the SimCity algorithm of job creation - jobs in another city are always better than the ones in yours. I would usually build a rail connection between them all and whenever you switch cities you'd always see an increase in rail traffic coming into the city you're playing. SimCity then tries to give all those commuters jobs in your city. Since there are none, it looks for jobs in th
Meanwhile, back at IBM... (Score:2)
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IBM has done it before - Russia circa 1930 (Score:2)
A planned economy requires massive quantities of mathematics to be performed.
And IBM was there to help. The Soviet Union was one of the biggest customers of IBM equipment, all through the 20s, the 30s, the Holodomor, the purges, etc.
Common sense (Score:2)
SimCuty 2000 Competition (Score:2)
Politics (Score:2)
So this model doesn't take into account the Mule (most models don't). You can edit for different circumstances, but it's definitely a "if this were to happen, then this might happen" thing rather than a "if we do this, then this might happen". You can't actual control obesity levels any more than you can control how many roads are in a city.
Scientist: If we replace roads with walking areas and light rail, we can reduce pollution in the city by 80%, make travel more efficient, and have 30% more green space
We're meddlesome. (Score:2)
"People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome."
-- River Tam
Go ahead, turn some knobs. See how it affects the lives of complete strangers.
Multiplying guesses (Score:2)
take a bunch of experts
turn what they say into rules
guess the coefficients/interaction levels
multiply it all together
the result is no more than a bunch of wild guesses with enormous error margins.
It's hard to model systems even when the basic mechanisms are fairly well understood (e.g. weather, planetary warming). A giant social system where the mechanisms are not really understood at all isn't going to yield to IBM's supercomputer.
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My sympathies - you seem to have also lost a lot of your post. Care to try again?
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My biggest problem with apartment living was dealing with my upstairs neighbor's daughter jumping all around or listening to the next door neighbor yelling at something or their tiny dogs yelping at 6am. I'm in a single family home now and it's nice and quiet with the unusual Friday night party on the deck a few houses down.